Refugees (16 page)

The bulk of the work was translating for Suryast's constant flow of patients. He worked alongside Dr. Garland, though he was timid about working intimately with a foreign woman. Nonetheless, Johar gave it his all.

The first patient was a girl as thin as camel thorn, whose cheekbones pushed through pallid cheeks. Johar translated Dr. Garland's question into Dari. “How long since your daughter has had fruits or vegetables?” he asked the young girl's mother.

“Since before we left Kandahar. A month or so, maybe longer,” she replied.

Dr. Garland examined her swollen, bleeding gums, while Johar translated the mother's words back into English. The doctor went to the cabinet, took out a bottle of white pills, and handed one to the child. “Tell her mother this is vitamin C, which will help cure her malnutrition. Tell the girl to place the pill on the back of her throat and tip her head as she swallows.” Johar instructed the girl while the doctor gave her water and demonstrated the necessary motions. It took many times of trying, for the child was weak and kept choking on the pill.

Next was a man who had fled Afghanistan with his grandson. In the trek from Khost blisters had formed on his knee stump where the wooden leg had rubbed it raw.

While Dr. Garland applied disinfectant and a bandage, Johar listened to the man's tale of escape. He'd awoken at night to a blast that ripped apart his roof. Fleeing to the courtyard, he and his terrified grandson had found his daughter's body, which they wrapped and took with them. Neighbors helped shepherd them out while the sky exploded into trails of greenish flares. American bombs had missed their target, a Taliban compound near the mosque. He buried his daughter outside the village on his way south.

“The walk nearly killed me, but I had to get my grandson to safety,” the old man explained as tears dropped onto his shalwar. “He's all I have left.” Johar glanced at the boy who sat by the door, and thought of Bija, struggling to recover as she slept at Anqa's, a friend of Dr. Garland's. Johar felt guilty that he had a job and ration tickets, that Bija had such good care, and that he hadn't lost a leg or an arm like
so many people at Suryast. Guilt ate at him when he heard crying at night, and when he saw the skeletal bodies of children being carried to the edges of camp for burial it pushed him to work even harder at the clinic.

Dr. Garland and Johar heard many shocking stories. Patients were desperate for treatment, but also to talk. Johar spared Dr. Garland the details. It wasn't her fault that America had sent bombs, just as it wasn't Johar's fault that the Taliban and Al Qaeda had seized Afghanistan. His heart broke as he heard the suffering of his people. Rumi's words whispered in Johar's mind.

Dr. Garland had not discussed the tragedy in her own country. Johar wondered what she would say. Instead, she spoke often of her daughter, Dawn, of her flute playing and how she was so talented she would surely earn a living with her music when she grew up. “I miss Dawn. She's about the same age as you, Johar. You'd like her. She's such a strong girl.”

Somehow Johar knew it was the girl he had spoken to, even though she hadn't admitted it. He'd almost told this to Dr. Garland, but instinct told him not to. Dawn seemed afraid to leave a message. Johar would stay out of it. If it were his mother, Johar would've offered her poems and blessings, even through a telephone line.

Maybe Dr. Garland wasn't who she seemed to be. Johar searched for a sinister element between her words, for hatred in her eyes, ill will in the awkward way she greeted him, harshness in her steady hands. He came up with no evidence of anything but determined doctoring. He felt nothing but gratitude for her help in saving Bija's life. No matter how many hours into the evening or how long the line of patients, Dr. Garland was solid.

Day after day, Romel threatened Johar as a jackal threatens a hare. “So, your cousin got seen by the doctor on the first day. I heard you jumped the clinic line. People were ready to beat you and throw your body in a ditch. I'd like to take part in that. You must think you are as important as the muezzin. Did a magic bird fly a ration booklet into your greedy palms? Seems as likely. I can only imagine what kind of favors you offered Vikhrim, that Pakistani rat. With all your magic, surely you could get yourself another tent. You better find one soon, or I'll finish the job they started in that clinic's line.”

Despite feeling guilty, Johar pleaded with Vikhrim to find him a tent. Vikhrim shook his head. “Make do! People who came before you still wait with no tent at all.”

Johar was ashamed. He should be able to defend himself without seeking escape, but he couldn't. His dread of conflict had slithered with him to Suryast. It would stalk him endlessly unless he forced himself to change.

Johar took to avoiding Romel. He left before Romel stirred at sunrise. When he walked Bija to Anqa's on the way to the clinic, he wound around the outskirts of camp, far from where Romel and his thuggish buddies gathered.
Romel's old father, Wahib, was no help. He spent his days clacking his beads and babbling nonsense. After his kind words on their first night, he now kept silent no matter how rude Romel's comments became. Only the little one, Zabit, was friendly. With his gap-toothed grin, he played with Bija at dusk whenever bursts of her old energy broke through.

Johar returned from the clinic one night, his head splitting with headache. He put Bija to sleep, then lay down, using his flattened pack for a headrest. There were sounds of weeping, of arguing, of lovemaking from neighboring tents. Johar tried to block out Romel's rank odor and a vague stink of death, which wafted in as he fell into a nightmare of the robber near Charikar. He'd had this dream before, only this time Johar fought back and wrestled the luti to the ground. But the luti prevailed, and at the moment his blade slashed the veins in Johar's throat, Johar startled awake, drenched in sweat.

He reached for the hats and socks inside his pack. “Khub ast, I've been robbed again!” He took a mental inventory: two pairs of socks, four hats, and the knitting needles. Romel's work, no doubt. Johar was such a fool.
Will I ever learn to defend myself?
Johar stayed in the tent later than usual, wondering what to do. He must confront Romel, yet he couldn't prove a thing. But that was his whining coward's voice, and his coward's voice was wrong. When Romel rose and stirred the coals, there was a sneer to his expression.

“Did you take my hats?” Johar asked.

Romel laughed. “What would I want with those silly hats?” His face turned hateful. “I'll tell you one thing—if you don't find another tent, I'll take more than your hats.
Maybe I'll take your little cousin.” Romel chuckled with contempt.

“You won't,” Johar muttered, and left. Though the donkey was usually left tethered to the tent, this day Johar and Bija rode the donkey to the clinic.

“Why are we riding today, Jor?” Bija asked. “I want to walk!” Since Bija's return to health, her energy again burst forth in wild gusts.

Johar didn't answer her.

They rode past tents, which were so close they touched, until they reached the main office. “Sahib,” Johar called to one of Vikhrim's friends from Karachi, who sat smoking. This Pakistani was the kind of leathery bazaar hawk that Johar steered clear of—a salesman who would sell his own mother's jewelry from her wrist. He often came to Suryast looking for young children to do his most difficult hauling of goods. The children were so famished, they would do anything for a few coins. As if the Pakistani sensed Johar's disdain, his lidded eyes scrutinized Johar without rising to greet him.

“You have something for me?” the man asked as he took a draw from his hookah.

“What would you give me for my donkey?” Johar's offhand manner belied his pattering heart.

Bija tugged on Johar's arm. “Jor, let's go. That man is scary.”

The man's lids raised like lazy curtains. “What would you want for the beast?” He rose and ambled toward them, like a westerner in one of those American bootlegs that Johar had seen in Baghlan as a child, ready for the shootout at the OK Corral.

It had come to this—his allegiance to peace, to the
power of poetry, gone. A scoundrel like Romel could change Johar's direction as swiftly as wind shifts from east to west. “A gun,” Johar answered. “Not too big; no Kalashnikov. Something I can hide in my pack. A simple thing that works.”

D
awn sat on the steps at Union Square, watching the carnival freaks. It was just weeks after the terrorist disaster, yet there were people selling American flags and postcards of the twin towers, loonies hawking herbal bioterror remedies, and people advertising Web sites that promised to crack terrorist cells through astrology, numerology, and even hair sculpture. This travesty of a memorial had happened in stages, like flowers in a vase that go from pastel blooms on upright stems to Day-Glo mold on gnarled fibers.

Dawn read in the
Times
that the suicide pilots had trained in what the press called Afghan terror camps. This was proof that there was some connection between Afghanistan and the attack on the twin towers. She hoped
Louise was safe over the border in Peshawar, then wondered why she was thinking about Louise so much. Dawn didn't hate her. And no matter what had gone wrong between them, it would be dreadful if she were hurt.

What about the boy who had answered Louise's phone—Johar, was it? He had a warm, kind voice. Dawn doubted he was a terrorist; that was just her stupid paranoia. She'd met a number of International Committee of the Red Cross workers. The ICRC people were always so mild-mannered and liberal. And they surely did thorough background checks.

Dawn's gaze returned to the plaza. She watched a camera operator zoom in for retakes of teary mourners lighting candles. The TV reporters' sound bites seemed rehearsed, disingenuous in relation to the tragedy itself. Hucksters oozed from every state and every borough. Why did tragedy bring out the ogling, warty worst in people?

Some of the activity at the park was still genuine. The day before, Dawn had played in two jam sessions, first with a lively jazz group from Vermont and then with an earnest gospel group. After that, she'd sat on the steps on the park's south side, where the largest crowds mingled, and watched an Indian girl in a head scarf set up a microphone by the subway entrance. The girl had to share the stage with a Korean violin player and a ranting socialist. Dawn found herself rooting for the girl as she explained how the Muslims in her Queens neighborhood were peaceful, how they grieved for America
—were
Americans. The girl said that the women feared going out of their houses. They were afraid to wear head scarves because people yanked them off and called them terrorists.

The crowd listened respectfully—some even clapped.
But a few shouted, “Go back to the Middle East.” You could hardly blame people for hating—so many had died at the hands of an Arab few. Dawn waited for the girl's expression to harden, but she paused patiently until the hecklers simmered down. Some of Louise's co-workers must be Muslim too, and prejudiced against westerners the way some here were against this girl. How would Afghanis or Pakistanis have reacted to American speakers over there?

When Dawn heard the news about the first bombing on Sunday it made her feel sick. The reporter explained that the United States was going to free Afghanis from their Taliban oppressors, who executed people and refused to hand over the Al Qaeda masterminds behind the attack on New York. But war was not a science; innocents got killed right along with murderers. Dawn had learned that much in history class. Afghans would be hurt! What would Johar think of working with an American then?

Dawn rested her elbows on the concrete steps and leaned back. A memory filtered in of a rainy day last autumn. She had been driving with Louise through Oakland on the way to the grocery store, the windows cracked open just enough to keep the glass from fogging, when a silver sports car shot through a red light, swerved around them, and smashed into a pole with a terrifying crash.

Louise sped to the shoulder, placed a call for help on her cell, then grabbed the first aid kit from the glove compartment. “Stay put,” she said with steely calm.

Outside the car, a black guy, huge as a wrestler, yelled at Louise. “You crazy bitch. This was your fault!”

Through the fogged-up window Dawn heard Louise staying cool, taking charge. “I'm a doctor. I can help you.” Blood streamed down the man's forehead as she helped
him under her umbrella. She patched him up. He became docile as a child under her firm touch, her calming words. Louise defused the tension brilliantly that day.

Dawn remembered what Johar had said before he had hung up
—must be hard to have mother all way over here.
There was something so caring about that, and Dawn realized it was true. She went behind the park hedge, set up the sat phone, and dialed.